‘Mr. Lin? You are Mr. Lin, I am thinking so?’ he asked.
The bear tilted its head as if it, too, was asking the question.
‘Yes!’ a few voices in the crowd called out. ‘Yes! This is Mr. Lin! This is Linbaba!’
I was still standing in the doorway of my hut, too surprised to speak or move. People were laughing and cheering. A few of the more courageous children crept almost close enough to touch the bear with darting fingers. Their mothers shrieked and laughed and gathered them back into their arms.
‘We are your friends,’ one of the blue-faced men said, in Hindi. His teeth were dazzling white, against the blue. ‘We have come with a message for you.’
The second man took a crumpled, yellow envelope from the pocket of his vest and held it up for me to see.
‘A message?’ I managed to ask.
‘Yes, an important message for you, sir,’ the first man said. ‘But first, you must do something. There is a promise for giving the message. A big promise. You will like it very much.’
They were speaking in Hindi, and I was unfamiliar with the word vachan, meaning promise. I stepped from the hut, edging around the bear. There were more people than I’d imagined, and they crowded together, just out of range of the bear’s paws. Several people were repeating the Hindi word vachan. A babble of other voices, in several languages, added to the shouts and stone-throwing and barking dogs to produce the sound effects for a minor riot.
The dust on the stony paths rose up in puffs and swirls, and although we were in the centre of a modern city, that place of bamboo huts and gaping crowds might’ve been a village in a forgotten valley. The bear-handlers, when I saw them clearly, seemed fantastic beings. Their bare arms and chests were well muscled beneath the blue paint, and their trousers were decorated with silver bells and discs and tassels of red and yellow silk. Both men had long hair, worn in dreadlocks as thick as two fingers, and tipped with coils of silver wire.
I felt a hand on my arm, and almost jumped. It was Prabaker. His usual smile was preternaturally wide and his dark eyes were happy.
‘We are so lucky to have you live with us, Lin. You are always bringing it so many adventures of a fully not-boring kind!’
‘I didn’t bring this, Prabu. What the hell are they saying? What do they want?’
‘They have it a message for you, Lin. But there is a vachan, a promise, before they will give it the message. There is a … you know … a catches.’
‘A catches?’
‘Yes, sure. This is English word, yes? Catches. It means like a little revenge for being nice,’ Prabaker grinned happily, seizing the opportunity to share one of his English definitions with me. It was his habit or fortuity, always, to find the most irritating moments to offer them.
‘Yes, I know what a catch is, Prabu. What I don’t know is, who are these guys? Who’s this message from?’
Prabaker rattled away in rapid Hindi, delighted to be the focus of attention in the exchange. The bear-handlers answered him in some detail, speaking just as swiftly. I couldn’t understand much of what was said, but those in the crowd who were close enough to hear broke out in an explosion of laughter. The bear dropped down on all fours and sniffed at my feet.
‘What did they say?’
‘Lin, they won’t tell who is sending it the messages,’ Prabaker said, suppressing his own laughter with some difficulty. ‘This is a big secret, and they are not telling it. They have some instructions, to give this message to you, with nothing explanations, and with the one catches for you, like a promise.’
‘What catch?’
‘Well, you have to hug it the bear.’
‘I have to what?’
‘Hug it the bear. You have to give him a big cuddles, like this.’
He reached out and grabbed me in a tight hug, his head pressed against my chest. The crowd applauded wildly, the bear-handlers shrieked in a high-pitched keening, and even the bear was moved to stand and dance a thudding, stomp-footed jig. The bewilderment and obvious reluctance on my face drove the people to more and bigger laughter.
‘No way,’ I said, shaking my head.
‘Oh, yes,’ Prabaker laughed.
‘Are you kidding? No way, man.’
‘Takleef nahin!’ one of the bear-handlers called out. No problem!’. ‘It is safe. Kano is very friendly. Kano is the friendliest bear in all India. Kano loves the people.’
He moved closer to the bear, shouting commands in Hindi. When Kano the bear stood to his full height, the handler stepped in and embraced him. The bear closed its paws around him, and rocked backwards and forwards. After a few seconds, it released the man, and he turned to the tumultuous applause of the crowd with a beaming smile and a showman’s bow.
‘No way,’ I said again.
‘Oh, come on, Lin. Hug it the bear,’ Prabaker pleaded, laughing harder.
‘I’m not hugging it any bear, Prabu.’
‘Come on, Lin. Don’t you want to know what is it, the messages?’
‘No.’
‘It might be important.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘You might like that hugging bear, Lin, isn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘You might.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Well, maybe, would you like me to give you another big hugs, for practice?’
‘No. Thanks, all the same.’
‘Then, just hug it the bear, Lin.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Oh, pleeeeeeese,’ Prabaker wheedled.
‘No.’
‘Yes, Lin, please hug it the bear,’ Prabaker encouraged, asking for support from the crowd. There were hundreds of people crammed into the lanes near my house. Children had found precarious vantage points on top of some of the sturdier huts.
‘Do it, do it, do it!’ they wailed and shouted.
Looking around me, from face to laughing face, I realised that I didn’t have any choice. I took the two steps, reached out tremulously, and slowly pressed myself against the shaggy fur of Kano the bear. He was surprisingly soft under the fur—almost pudgy. The thick forelegs were all muscle, however, and they closed around me at shoulder height with a massive power, a non-human strength. I knew what it was to feel utterly helpless.
One fright-driven thought spun through my mind—Kano could snap my back as easily as I could snap a pencil. The bear’s voice grumbled in his chest against my ear. A smell like wet moss filled my nostrils. Mixed with it was a smell like new leather shoes, and the smell of a child’s woollen blanket. Beyond that, there was a piercing ammoniac smell, like bone being cut with a saw. The noise of the crowd faded. Kano was warm. Kano moved from side to side. The fur, in the grasp of my fingers, was soft, and attached to rolls of skin like that on the back of a dog’s neck. I clung to the fur, and rocked with him. In its brawny grip, it seemed to me that I was floating, or perhaps falling, from some exalted place of inexpressible peace and promise.
Hands shook my shoulders, and I opened my eyes to see that I’d fallen to my knees. Kano the bear had released me from the hug, and was already at the end of the short lane, lumbering away with his slow, thumping tread in the company of his handlers and the retinue of people and maddened dogs.
‘Linbaba, are you all right?’
‘I’m fine, fine. Must have … I got dizzy, or something.’
‘Kano was giving you the pretty good squeezes, yes? Here, this is your message.’
I went back to my hut and sat at the small table made from packing crates. Inside the crumpled envelope was a typed note on matching yellow paper. It was typed in English, and I suspected that it had been typed by one of the professional letter-writers on the Street of the Writers. It was from Abdullah.
My Dear Brother,
Salaam aleikum. You told me that you are giving the bear hugs to the people. I think this is a custom in your country and even if I think it is very strange and even if I do not understand, I think you must be lonely for it here because in Bo
mbay we have a shortage of bears. So I send you a bear for some hugging. Please enjoy. I hope he is like the hugging bears in your country. I am busy with business and I am healthy, thanks be to God. After my business I will return to Bombay soon, Inshallah. God bless you and your brother.
Abdullah Taheri
Prabaker was standing at my left shoulder, reading the note out aloud, slowly.
‘Aha, this is the Abdullah, who I am not supposed to be telling you that he is doing all the bad things, but really he is, even at the same time that I am not telling you … that he is.’
‘It’s rude to read other people’s mail, Prabu.’
‘Is rude, yes. Rude means that we like to do it, even when people tell us not to, yes?’
‘Who are those bear guys?’ I asked him. ‘Where are they staying?’
‘They are making money with the dancing bear. They are original from UP., Uttar Pradesh, in the north of this, our Mother India, but travelling everywhere. Now they are staying at the zhopadpatti in Navy Nagar area. Do you want me to take you there?’
‘No,’ I muttered, reading the note over again. ‘No, not now. Maybe later.’
Prabaker went to the open door of the hut and paused there, staring at me reflectively with his small, round head cocked to one side. I put the note in my pocket, and looked up at him. I thought he wanted to say something—there was a little struggle of concentration in his brow—but then he seemed to change his mind. He shrugged. He smiled.
‘Some sick peoples are coming today?’
‘A few. I think. Later.’
‘Well, I will be seeing you at the lunch party, yes?’
‘Sure.’
‘Do you … do you want me, for to do anything?’
‘No. Thanks.’
‘Do you want my neighbour, his wife, to wash it your shirt?’
‘Wash my shirt?’
‘Yes. It is smelling like bears. You are smelling like bears, Linbaba.’
‘It’s okay,’ I laughed. ‘I kinda like it.’
‘Well, I’m going now. I’m going to drive my cousin Shantu’s taxi.’
‘Okay then.’
‘All right. I’m going now.’
He walked out, and when I was alone again the sounds of the slum swarmed around me: hawkers selling, children playing, women laughing, and love songs blaring from radios running on maximum distortion. There were also animal sounds, hundreds of them. With only days to go before the big rain, many itinerants and entertainers, like the two bear-handlers, had sought shelter in slums throughout the city. Ours was host to three groups of snake charmers, a team of monkey men, and numerous breeders of parrots and singing birds. The men who usually tethered horses in open ground near the Navy barracks brought their mounts to our makeshift stables. Goats and sheep and pigs, chickens and bullocks and water buffalo, even a camel and an elephant—the acres of the slum had become a kind of sprawling ark, providing sanctuary from the coming floods.
The animals were welcome, and no-one questioned their right to shelter, but their presence did pose new problems. On the first night of their stay, the monkey men allowed one of their animals to escape while everyone was asleep. The mischievous creature scampered over the tops of several huts and lowered itself into the hut used by one group of snake charmers. The snake men housed their cobras in covered wicker baskets which were secured with a bamboo slip-catch and a stone placed on top of each cover. The monkey removed one of the stones, and opened a basket containing three cobras. From a safe vantage point at the top of the hut, the monkey shrieked the snake men awake, and they sounded the alarm.
‘Saap alla! Saap alla! Saap!’ Snakes are coming! Snakes!
There was pandemonium, then, as sleepy slum-dwellers rushed about with kerosene lanterns and flaming torches, striking at every shadow, and beating each other on the feet and shins with sticks and poles. A few of the flimsier huts were knocked over in the stampede. Qasim Ali finally restored order, and organised the snake men into two search parties that combed the slum systematically until they found the cobras and returned them to their basket.
Among their many other skills, the monkeys had also been trained to be excellent thieves. Like most of the slums throughout the city, ours was a stealing-free zone. With no locks on any of the doors, and no secret places for any of us to hide things, the monkeys were in a pilferer’s paradise. Each day, the embarrassed monkey men were forced to set up a table outside their hut where all the items their monkeys had stolen could be displayed, and reclaimed by the rightful owners. The monkeys showed a marked preference for the glass bangles and brass anklets or bracelets worn by most of the little girls. Even after the monkey men bought them their own supply of the baubles, and festooned their hairy arms and legs with them, the monkeys still found the theft of such jewellery irresistible.
Qasim Ali decided at last to have noisy bells put on all the monkeys while they were within the slum. The creatures displayed an inventive resourcefulness in divesting themselves of the bells or in smothering them. I once saw two monkeys stalking along the deserted lane outside my hut, at dusk, their eyes huge with simian guilt and mischief. One of them had succeeded in removing the bells from around its neck. It walked on its hind legs, in tandem with the other ape, muffling the noise of the other’s bells by holding on to them with both tiny hands. Despite their ingenuity, the bell music did make their usually noiseless capering more detectable, reducing their small felonies and the shame of their handlers.
Along with those itinerants, many of the people who lived on the streets near our slum were drawn to the relative security of our huts. Known as pavement dwellers, they were people who made homes for themselves on every available strip of unused land and any footpath wide enough to support their flimsy shelters, while still permitting pedestrian traffic. Their houses were the most primitive, and the conditions under which they lived the most harsh and brutalising, of all the millions of homeless people in Bombay. When the monsoon struck, their position was always dangerous and sometimes untenable, and many of them sought refuge in the slums.
They were from every part of India: Assamese and Tamils, Karnatakans and Gujaratis, people from Trivandrum, Bikaner, and Konarak. During the monsoon, five thousand of those extra souls squeezed themselves into the already over-crowded slum. With subtractions for the space taken up by animal pens, shops, storage areas, streets, lanes, and latrines, that allowed some two square metres for each man, woman, and child among us.
The greater-than-usual crowding caused some tensions and additional difficulties, but in the main the newcomers were treated tolerantly. I never heard anyone suggest that they shouldn’t have been helped or made welcome. The only serious problems, in fact, came from outside the slum. Those five thousand extra people, and the many thousands who’d flocked to other slums as the monsoon approached, had been living on the streets. They’d all done their shopping, such as it was, in shops throughout the area. Their purchases were individually small—eggs, milk, tea, bread, cigarettes, vegetables, kerosene, children’s clothes, and so on. Collectively, they accounted for large amounts of money and a considerable portion of the trade for local shops. When they moved to the slums, however, the newcomers tended to spend their money at the dozens of tiny shops within the slums. The small, illegal businesses supplied almost everything that could be bought in the legal shops of the well-established shopping districts. There were shops that supplied food, clothing, oils, pulses, kerosene, alcohol, hashish, and even electrical appliances. The slum was largely self-contained, and Johnny Cigar—a money and tax adviser to the slum businesses—estimated that the slum-dwellers spent twenty rupees within the slum for every one rupee they spent outside it.
Shopkeepers and small businessmen everywhere resented that attrition of their sales and the success of the thriving slum shops. When the threat of rain pulled even the pavement dwellers into the slums, their resentment turned to rage. They joined forces with local landlords, property developers, and others who feared and op
posed the expansion of the slums. Pooling their resources, they recruited two gangs of thugs from areas outside Colaba, and paid them to attack the supply lines to slum shops. Those returning from the large markets with cartloads of vegetables or fish or dry goods for shops in the slum were harassed, had their goods spoiled, and were sometimes even assaulted.
I’d treated several children and young men who’d been attacked by those gangs. There’d been threats that acid would be thrown. Unable to appeal to the police for help—the cops had been paid to maintain a discreet myopia—the slum-dwellers banded together to defend themselves. Qasim Ali formed brigades of children who patrolled the perimeter of the slum as lookouts, and several platoons of strong, young men to escort those who visited the markets.
Clashes had already occurred between our young men and the hired thugs. We all knew that, when the monsoon came, there would be more and greater violence. Tensions ran high. Still, the war of the shopkeepers didn’t dispirit the slum-dwellers. On the contrary, the shopkeepers within the slum experienced a surge of popularity. They became demi-heroes, and were moved to respond with special sales, reduced prices, and a carnival atmosphere. The ghetto was a living organism: to counter external threats, it responded with the antibodies of courage, solidarity, and that desperate, magnificent love we usually call the survival instinct. If the slum failed, there was nowhere and nothing else.
One of the young men who’d been injured in an attack on our supply lines was a laborer on the construction site beside the slum. His name was Naresh. He was nineteen years old. It was his voice, and a confident rapping on the open door of my hut, which scattered the brief, still solitude that I’d found when my friends and neighbours had followed Kano and his bear-handlers from the slum. Without waiting for me to reply, Naresh stepped into the hut and greeted me.